Jay Greenstein

First, and before anything else, I am a storyteller. My skills at writing are subject to opinion, my punctuation has been called interesting, at best—but I am a storyteller.

I am, of course, many other things. In seventy-two years of living, there are great numbers of things that have attracted my attention. I am, for example, an electrician. Not quite as good as my father, who taught me the skills, but still, I can usually please those whose homes I have improved.

I am an engineer, one who has designed computers and computer systems; one of which—during the bad old days of the cold war—flew in the plane designated as our President’s Airborne Command Post… The Doomsday Jet.

I’ve spent seven years as the chief engineer of a company that built bar-code readers.

I spent thirteen of the most enjoyable years of my life as a scoutmaster, and three, nearly as good, as a cubmaster.

I joined the Air Force to learn jet engine mechanics, but ended up working in broadcast and closed circuit television, serving in such unlikely locations as the War Room of the Strategic Air Command, and a television station on the island of Okinawa.

I have been involved in sports car racing, scuba diving, sailing, and anything else that sounded like fun. I can fix most things that break, sew a fairly neat seam, and have raised three pretty nice kids.

Titles Available from Jay Greenstein

Donald Tyson answered an improbable ad. Now, he’s a wizard, and sells magic over the counter like toothpaste, providing invulnerability and perfect health at reasonable cost. Business is brisk, as you might imagine. But who will buy a car when a magic carpet is cheap and doesn’t need fueling? Who needs doctors or hospitals when no one ever gets sick, or hurt? Soon, half the world is unemployed. That’s bad. But soon, too, dictatorships will vanish, and that’s good. How do you oppress people who can’t be hurt, and who can jump on their flying carpet and cross oceans at will?

Fifteen-year-old Ron Gibson was there with his Scout troop, on the day the Talperno ship dropped out of the clouds and set up shop on the grass by the Washington Monument. In fact, they very nearly landed on Ron and his fellow Scouts as their ship, a fifty story concrete office building, touched down. Stunned, but raised on a diet of science fiction and adventure movies, the boys march through the front door and become the first humans to meet the Talperno.

Assume that angels exist. Assume, too, that while their powers are impressive, they must operate within the physical laws of the universe. Now, assume that one beautiful angel has, for reasons of her own, left the comfort and safety of heaven. The futures of humankind and those who dwell in heaven hang in the balance.

Irreverence? What’s that?

Well, that all depends on how the word is used. The context, you know. Irreverence is not limited to what many people think-something to do with religion, although that can be a large part of it. Nope, it is a big word with broad meaning. Let me give you a few examples of how it is used:

Irreverent is the adjective from which the noun "irreverence" comes.

Its basic meaning is "disrespectful". Now you have an idea of just how broad it can be. I’ll wager you can think of a lot of ways to be disrespectful. There is a whole world of irreverence in the pot. Our authors gleefully dip their pens into that pot and scribble out their twisted views of this world-or other worlds.

Words that can be used in place of irreverent (synonyms) are: aweless, cheeky, cocky, contemptuous, crusty, derisive, flip, flippant, fresh, iconoclastic, impertinent, impious, impudent, insolent, irreverential, mocking, out-of-line, profane, rude, sacrilegious, sassy, saucy, tongue-in-cheek, ungodly, unhallowed, unholy and so forth. As you can readily see, the majority of the Twisted Tails authors are world class representatives of the word in all its specific meanings; not just a couple.

I have gathered together several cheeky authors whose impiety is well known and asked them to grace these pages with words of insolence for your reading pleasure. As always, there is no genre restriction. Here you’ll find Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Thrill-a-minute-even Mainstream. The only common element here is Irreverence. The other big deal about the Twisted Tails series that is a must are unexpected endings and sheer quality of writing. Each author brings his/her unique style and voice to the page, but to get to the page the quality of writing demanded in the Twisted Tails series of anthologies had to have been there or it would have been a "no-go". Just another rejection slip to add to the stack in an author’s dark corner. Have fun while you cringe at their out-of-line talent at twisting irreverent tales and we hope to see you again-should there be a next time. I have it on good authority that there probably will be a next time, so keep a watch for it.